Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Hugh Pickens writes "Studies comparing identical twins with non-identical twins have helped to establish the heritability of many aspects of behavior. Recent work suggests that about one third of the variation in people's happiness is heritable. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve has taken the study a step further, picking a popular suspect — the gene that encodes the serotonin-transporter protein, a molecule that shuffles a brain messenger called serotonin through cell membranes — and examined how variants of the 5-HTT gene affect levels of happiness. The serotonin-transporter gene comes in two functional variants—long and short and people have two versions (known as alleles) of each gene, one from each parent. After examining genetic data from more than 2,500 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, De Neve found that people with one long allele were 8% more likely than those with none to describe themselves as very satisfied with life and those with two long alleles were 17% more likely of describing themselves as very satisfied. Interestingly enough, there is a notable variation across races with Asian Americans in the sample having on average 0.69 long genes, white Americans with 1.12, and black Americans with 1.47. 'It has long been suspected that this gene plays a role in mental health but this is the first study to show that it is instrumental in shaping our individual happiness levels (PDF),' writes De Neve. 'This finding helps to explain why we each have a unique baseline level of happiness and why some people tend to be naturally happier than others, and that's in no small part due to our individual genetic make-up.'"

Baseline happiness can arguably be negatively correlated to competitiveness, drive and success. You are naturally happy, so you don't worry about making things better for yourself or your children, you just go with the flow because things are pretty good the way they are.

Check out the decisions of people before and after they go on an SSRI. The small sample of SSRI users I know tend to fall into a complacent, ultimately self destructive, state when they are on the pills for too long (6 months or more). It's not something I've seen widely published in the literature, just personal observation shared between myself and other non-SSRI users about SSRI users we know.

Baseline happiness can arguably be negatively correlated to competitiveness, drive and success. You are naturally happy, so you don't worry about making things better for yourself or your children, you just go with the flow because things are pretty good the way they are.

Check out the decisions of people before and after they go on an SSRI. The small sample of SSRI users I know tend to fall into a complacent, ultimately self destructive, state when they are on the pills for too long (6 months or more). It's not something I've seen widely published in the literature, just personal observation shared between myself and other non-SSRI users about SSRI users we know.

I somewhat agree, though without the "self-destructive" part of your statement. I have been on SSRI and have seen my own complacency reduce my drive.

A friend, as well as myself, struggle with anxiety disorders. I considered going on SSRIs but he warned me against them. His experience was, yes it evens out your extremes, so no difficult periods of crippling anxiety. However, you are equally incapable of being very happy, the drug mainly working to, quite literally, level you. He said after months of use he felt like he was just going through the motions, everything was routine. He was not upset, sad or anxious, but he also never enjoyed anything. I decid

A few years after purchasing my convertible car, I read that driving fast with the top down in the sunshine can release a significant quantity of seratonin compared to driving a sedan, sedately, with the windows rolled up. I also read (in a completely unrelated article) that excess levels of seratonin can lead to involuntary clenching of the jaw muscles and grinding of the teeth. For myself, these two observations appear to work (blast home over the I-195 causeway with the top down, get a case of lock-jaw

My convertible is a 1991 Mazda Miata - decent ones go for about $1500 these days.

Add another $1500-$2K to that and put on a turbo or supercharger..and you will REALLY start to feel better. Those little cars souped up can REALLY be screamers. You sure can surprise people in mustangs, or even the lower end vettes with a tweaked miata.

My convertible is a 1991 Mazda Miata - decent ones go for about $1500 these days.

Add another $1500-$2K to that and put on a turbo or supercharger..and you will REALLY start to feel better. Those little cars souped up can REALLY be screamers. You sure can surprise people in mustangs, or even the lower end vettes with a tweaked miata.

Careful there - I went down that road, $5K for a turbo+ECU with intercooler and free flow exhaust, another $5K for limited slip differential, brake upgrades, etc. I got plenty of lock-jaw before the turbo went on (though I get it much easier since...)

I went the route of getting one of the '05 Mazdaspeed miatas, already with factory turbo, suspension upgrades, anti-sway bars..etc.

I'm looking to drop about $1600 or so, to get rid of the factory air restriction...using the Flyin Miata [flyinmiata.com] upgrades...basically the little enchilada...to get to about 200HP true rear wheel horsepower...which will be pretty fun.

I'll likely keep it at that, and use this for my ragtop, and possibly get one of the new 580 HP ZL-1 Camaro [caranddriver.com] that should come out some time next

Baseline happiness can arguably be negatively correlated to competitiveness, drive and success.

Or not, because people who are depressed feel like it doesn't matter what they do, life's going to suck anyways. They may also respond to their constant unhappiness by looking for artificial mood boosters, which can lead to alcoholism or drug use. They frequently also fail to recognize the value of their accomplishments. By contrast, a happier person is more likely to trigger their brain's reward mechanisms when they do something productive, so they're likely to repeat the behavior.

And it's also worth noting that it's unclear to what degree "drive" and "competitiveness" has to do with "success": The best predictor of a person's level of educational attainment is their parents' educational attainment. The best predictor of athletic success is genetic advantages like height, eyesight, and weight. Artistic success has a fair amount to do with whether a kid's artistic efforts were encouraged or discouraged early on. Most of the really wealthy people in the US inherited a significant amount (Paul Allen is the exception on this front, not the rule).

Baseline happiness can arguably be negatively correlated to competitiveness, drive and success.

Or not, because people who are depressed feel like it doesn't matter what they do, life's going to suck anyways.

Like I said, arguably. The morbid joke around depression treatment circles is that ECT works because you forget that your life sucks, as soon as you remember (typically in 6 months or so), you're depressed again.

Swing too far in any direction and things usually don't go well, in a population of billions there are plenty of exceptions, but mostly, it's a bad idea to get really happy (like opium users), or really depressed.

I mean, the nerve of these scientists trying to propose that possibly there are genetic differences between the races. We all know that this is not the case, that all races and people, of both sexes (and hermaphrodites) are completely and 100% equal on all bases.

I mean, what the hell? Haven't we progressed beyond this discriminatory scientific findings thing YET?!??!

SSRIs make 'bad' situations seem 'fine' so there's no drive to get out of them. Whether that be a bad relationship, bad living arrangements, bad job, etc. Sadness and dissatisfaction can be powerful motivators to improve your life. Of course they can also become crippling when people are unable or unwilling to make changes and end up stuck in that unhappy place for too long. SSRIs make that unhappy place a normal place... so why change?

Check out the decisions of people before and after they go on an SSRI. The small sample of SSRI users I know tend to fall into a complacent, ultimately self destructive, state when they are on the pills for too long (6 months or more). It's not something I've seen widely published in the literature, just personal observation shared between myself and other non-SSRI users about SSRI users we know.

I believe this might also be the case with non-SSRI anti-depressants like Wellbutrin (which is really more like a serotonin production booster than something that keeps it from being removed from the system). I think this is a very good point and I'm glad you mentioned it.

I wonder how much of our great art would never have been created if these concentrated anti-depressants were invented centuries ago.

A possible factor here is that if they recruited test subjects from the student population (not uncommon for university studies), the black subjects would be more likely to be exceptionally motivated and happy people just to get into the school in the first place.

Drive and happiness seem pretty much opposed to me. Not depression obviously which tends to kill drive entirely. But if you are "happy" getting Bs you aren't going to work harder to get As. The idea of "baseline happiness" is that you are stuck with it too, I think anyway. So a better paying job or better results in school will make you happier but only temporarily and soon you'll revert back to the baseline. So those who are the most "naturally unhappy" will have a greater urge to increase their happiness

First - Yes - it has been obsered in the wild. That was the point of the study.

Second - and this is imporant - they were testing "Black Americans". African gene are the most heterogeneous - which is what one would expect from the cradle of mankind. "Black Americans" genes are much more homogeneous since they were drawn from a limited pool. So while we can say this is true for Black Americans but it does not say anything about Africans in general.

Interesting test (party affiliation vs allelle composition), doubt we could get government funding to run a publicly published study though. I bet there are private studies already in the works for the various "political think tanks."

If you really think everyone "works" for what they have then you haven't been in the workforce long have you? Jesus.

Furthermore, if we are talking about the 1%: these guys aren't the risk takers, they aren't the job creators, they aren't the innovators. They are like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan since 1995. He's seen his overall compensation between 9 million and 30 million all the while returning what to shareholders? Nothing. JPM the stock, which joe worker might rely upon either as a single equity or as

Furthermore, if we are talking about the 1%: these guys aren't the risk takers, they aren't the job creators, they aren't the innovators. They are like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan since 1995. He's seen his overall compensation between 9 million and 30 million all the while returning what to shareholders?

And my thought is..."SO WHAT?"

It shouldn't matter or you or I...or anyone else how much this guy makes for doing nothing...except the stockholders of JPM.

I am definitely a JPM individual stockholder and very likely through one of the index funds in my 40x plan.

Being a common stockholder really holds no water. The networked board makes the decisions no matter what. I'm not saying I'm powerless, but, we are powerless.

Things like sports keep people interested in something else. Entertainment in general keeps people happy, it's a diversion. And I am one who rails against the high salaries of entertainers, kingly sums really. But I only rail so far because what's

Furthermore, if we are talking about the 1%: these guys aren't the risk takers, they aren't the job creators, they aren't the innovators. They are like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan since 1995. He's seen his overall compensation between 9 million and 30 million all the while returning what to shareholders? Nothing. JPM the stock, which joe worker might rely upon either as a single equity or as part of an index fund has remained absolutely flat returning a paltry dividend only.

You have fully epitomized the problem with class warfare - you've decided that the wealthiest 1% are all like the wealthiest 0.00001%!

Here's a wake-up call for you. The vast majority of the "1% 'ers" you hate are hard workers, and provide a huge benefit to the economy. It's too bad they actually don't make the kind of money you think they do, because if they did then their income alone would put the GDP of the US at about $51 Trillion - almost 4 times the actual GDP.

A. Wake up call? I NEVER said I "hated" them.A1. Maybe there was some generalization there, but, I still support a 1%'er tax hike - period. Hard work yes, but those extreme compensation examples do not happen all by themselves. We pay for too much military, police and fire personnel with lifetime handsome livings, good highway systems, clean water, etc... Not a single 1%er did anything alone.A2. I agree that fairly taxing 1%ers will not shift power down. Nothing will but it's a completely separate problem o

Your post is full of nothing but Democratic talking points, so I'm not sure why I would even respond to it.

You say you "still support" a 1%'er tax hike, without any justification for why (envy?). Your statist talking points don't even address the fact that the 1% pay about 30% of the federal taxes while earning 18% of the income.

I'm not impressed by anybody's plan for better and more efficient slave factories.

The US is NOT a democracy - it's a democratic Republic. It actually works very well everywhere ex

Class warfare is already happening against the middle and poor class. The top 10% are mostly sheltered from this shitty economy the top 1% created out of greed, to make themselves richer. The top 10% are awash with hard workers, the top 1% are not. We are talking about people that have connections through Harvard or other institutions and already come from money, then make ridiculous salaries 500 times that of their hardest working employees. There are plenty of people in the lower 90% that could achieve a

You've just perpetuated exactly the same false equivalency I pointed out in my post, without even addressing anything I said.

And if you think there are 34 million people in the US sheltered from the shitty economy, you're completely full of shit. Nor is there anywhere close to 3.4 million people making 500 times the amount of their workers, that's bullshit.

There are plenty of people in the lower 90% that could achieve a Harvard or other Ivy League degree, its just inaccessible for them unless they happen to suck the right cock for a scholarship.

I guess Obama sucked the right ones, then, he was certainly in the lower 90% during his college years. I guess he's still doing it, too.

Why would you say that?I have seen a lot of very happy republicans, especially when they are not around democrats, democrats like to put a downer on everything, Oh how many trees died so we can have are playing cards. Oh look the public access posting has a misspelling it is because we are not funding our schools. Oh no we wont go to that because we have to give money to a huge company... Really Democrats are really a downer, even when they are not with Republicans.

Now I am not saying we should just follow the Republicans just because they are happier with the way thing are/were because they are ignoring a lot of serious problems. But in terms of happiness Republicans are happier on the average then Democrats.

I saw a documentary about happiness a few weeks ago. In it, an American doctor confirmed exactly that: Republicans are far happier than Democrats, because they believe the world is good as it is and nothing is worth changing.

Not that I put much store in such things, but studies and surveys show your statement is totally backwards--republicans (or, more specifically, conservatives) tend to be happier than democrats (liberals):

Republicans have a higher proportion of married people and parents than democrats. That might contribute to their higher happiness levels.

Another might be the urban/rural split. Urban dwellers are more likely democrat, and also more likely miserable. I noted a while ago that democrats are more likely to launch into profanity on a bulletin board than republicans... I eventually decided that it has nothing to do with politics, but just a side effect of democrats being generally more urban and younger.

Republicans have a higher proportion of married people and parents than democrats. That might contribute to their higher happiness levels.

On slashdot I've previously been cited statistics that show parents are actually -- at all stages of life -- unhappier than non-parents. I'm a new parent (2-year-old) and that doesn't match my experience, but again, anecdotal...

Another might be the urban/rural split. Urban dwellers are more likely democrat, and also more likely miserable. I noted a while ago that democrats are more likely to launch into profanity on a bulletin board than republicans... I eventually decided that it has nothing to do with politics, but just a side effect of democrats being generally more urban and younger.

I've always thought city dwellers seem miserable, but apparently some people like the urban lifestyle. I would mostly agree about profanity / getting really upset on messageboards seems dominated by leftists, but have you noticed on news sites that now use facebook for comments? It's

Sounds like you didn't understand. He wasn't talking about inserting the alleles into cells after the fact (something which isn't attainable with current technology, although some retroviruses show promise), but rather synthesizing the compounds which those cells with the aforementioned alleles would be producing to mimic the effect without the genetic machinery. That would in fact have to be a regular and recurring treatment, though I'm not sure that it would be all that different from existing treatments relating to seratonin production and management.

True. Probably due to my personal crusade history and lack of deep though this morning. I have, on occasion, advocated for development of the retroviral type treatments for much more limited / controlled treatments, and the most common reaction I got was "that's science fiction, we're at least 20 years out from even seeing that work reliably in mice" - this was in 2004ish. The treatment I was advocating (increase local neural photosensitivity to replace electrostimulation with photostimulation, increasin

Even if we assume that all drug developers are a cartel(rather than a set of entities competing with one another to produce blockbuster drugs; but in agreement that drugs really ought to be expensive), developing a one-time treatment makes total sense if it is sufficiently expensive vs. a maintenance drug.

The net present value of a patient on a maintenance drug is lowered by the fact that future sales to them are time discounted($50 today is better than a promise of $50 a year from now, though exact disc

Consider, by way of analogy, the way that laser eye surgery was not actually crushed by the Glasses Industrial Complex. It is a comparatively 'premium' priced product, compared to a basic pair of glasses every so often(based on breakage or prescription change) for life; but it offers good immediate-cash-in-hand profits for the producer and is valued by consumers for its great longterm convenience.

Alcon, a major manufacturer of laser eye surgery machines and eyedrops, loses money on the machines, they make it all in the eyedrops.

Likely depends on whether the effect is continuous, or whether the major difference is made relatively early in development, by pushing the system onto a different trajectory than it otherwise would have followed.

We already have scads of SSRIs that tweak the seretonin system in what is supposed to be a positive direction. Those, as a class, manage to have clinically significant effects in a reasonable percentage of people with major depression; but (despite broad, fairly easy, availability) have attracte

I doubt that the world would benefit from everybody being happy all the time. Happiness is in the path, not the destination. You should do things that make you happy, instead of just be happy and idle.

Almost certainly never. Transporters are big proteins that have to be folded correctly and inserted into the membrane and trafficked to the right place on the neuron. The pharmacology involved in getting an exogenous transporter into the right places just boggles the mind. Can't be done.

Now using the DNA that encodes the long form of this protein, that might be thereputically valuable.

I have met these... and those with pollyannaish tendencies (a different vector of delusion really). In the US, a lot of people tend to like folks such as these, take them on as subordinates, and promote them to their peter principle level. Not many adults enjoy the truth I've learned.

I know this is a semantically pedantic rant, but when I see comments like that, it just makes me want to face palm. Of course our genetic make-up determines who we are. Whether we're happy (as in this study), the color of our eyes, male/female/miscellaneous (Hindu! There are 700 million of us!), how tall we are or whatever, it is our genes that, almost without exception, determine who we are.

Given the observed sensitivity, especially but not exclusively neonatal, to environmental influences, and the whole field of epigenetic study, it is neither obvious, nor obviously true, that our genetic make-up determines who we are.

Thanks to twin studies and other convenient test populations, we've been able to determine that some things are extremely heritable; but that others are surprisingly minimally so. There are even a number of factors(mostly metabolic and neurological stuff that is laid down in utero) where the developing embryo takes enough chemical cues from mommy that a practically Lamarkian pattern of 'inheritance' is seen.

Except that there's a lot of question about the environmental factors in many areas of development. Behavior is definitely one area where it has at least some effect. If I'm born genetically predisposed to mild depression, but I have a great family who support me, live a relatively "good" life, and maybe take up some sort of meditation practice, it's less likely that I'll be regularly depressed. I'll still be more inclined to it than someone without the genetic predisposition, but chances are I'll be ha

It is well known that a lot of what you are is *not* genetic. For example even this study showed that happiness is 60% not heritable. Your genes don't code for all the connections in your brain for example, there is simply not enough genetic material for that. More plain examples are iris patterns and fingerprints. But the list goes on. General Health, exercise and eating habits matter for a lot of things like happiness.

The problem with its all genetics is that you are required to ignore a lot of data th

I know this is a semantically pedantic rant, but when I see comments like that, it just makes me want to face palm.

Go ahead. Maybe you'll smack some sense into yourself.

Whether we're happy (as in this study)

You mean as in this study where the genetic factor was 30%, leaving 70% non-genetic?

it is our genes that, almost without exception, determine who we are. To say otherwise, or feign surprise, is just stupid.

Yeah, almost without exception, except the myriad exceptions that you yourself could probably spend all day reciting if you weren't determined to pursue the "Yawn, I am not surprised at this outcome" line even though your feigned non-surprise is completely stupid in this case.

That's the sort of tosh that sounds very poetic; but is really nonsense.

Moods don't "mean" things: they are physiological states, not symbols. Further, "happy" isn't something you infer by playing compare-and-contrast, it's the immediate introspective impression of a certain state(just as certain sensations on the skin are pleasant per se, not by contrast to being on fire.)

Our present knowledge of psycho-pharmacology and neurology is blunt enough that shooting for permanent happiness is not a particul

I think you're too quick to dismiss the importance of relative moods. Pain or pleasure is often relative to a normal baseline, and if somebody never experiences pain, they will be terribly hurt by a small trauma. Similarly, a small bit of happiness in a miserable life can be transforming.

I agree that all states aren't relative. I'd offer 'contentment' as an example. It's a wonderful feeling, and it doesn't really fade. You have it or you don't.

"Happy" and "sad" are a bound pair - you can't have one without the other. If you were happy all the time, never experiencing sadness, the term "happy" would be meaningless. You would just "be."

Your tongue rattles around inside your mouth all the time. Plenty of contact sensations there, the vast majority of which are ignored because they are always there. Munching a strawberry is pleasant; munching your tongue is unpleasant. So your tongue-contact state space decomposes into "pleasant," "unpleasan

Mob psychology is the echo chamber of common sense. And that's the good outcome. Even worse is nature/nurture where there was never much common sense to begin with.

Yes, there are correlates on both sides despite one or more mixing rounds of bent functions.

How does one perform medical epidemiology on an encryption block your kid sister wrote? Let's say your kid sister is Judit Polgar and she's almost smart enough to get this right (having not actually majored in math or computer science), but then you t

Play the enlightenment game to its logical conclusions and we *do* get to tease the yolk and the whites apart someday, if we aren't fixated on much more important problems by then. In the meantime, the someone will figure out how to use these studies to make back all the money that went into them, and more.

I have depression and have had it since I was 16. My parents don't. My brothers don't. No one in my family on either side suffers from it. And yet, SSRI's work for me, not NRI's, DRI's or MAOI's. I wouldn't associate it with genetics based purely on subjective observations.

I've been told I'm "abnormally happy" by a few folks over the years, and it has made me wonder - my mother was bi-polar, my oldest sister is also bi-polar, my second oldest sister has schizophrenia, and the third oldest sister is chronically depressed. Is chronic happiness also a mental illness? I have occasionally bouts of sadness or anger, but they never last more than a few hours and I can usually sleep it off. I always thought I had just inherited my father's stoic personality, but sometimes I wonder

We nd evidence of signicant association in both data sets,suggesting that the SLC6A4 gene may play a role in explaining subjectivewell-being. While we do not claim that SLC6A4 determines happiness, nordo we exclude the possibility that several other genes may also play a role,we do think that the results suggest at least one possible causal pathwayable to account for the inuence of genes on happiness

Here's a quote from The Economist describing the paper:

Recent work on both these fronts suggests that happiness is highly heritable . . . so, presumably, the tendency to be happy or miserable is, to some extent, passed on through DNA.

"Suggests" is a scientific weasel word that can be improperly read by morons as "concludes." Or intentionally misconstrued by journalists because a study that doesn't conclude anything and merely provides a data set that may be useful in the future isn't that interesting and they want clicks. Doing more studies may show a regression toward the mean. A more nuanced classification of the participants may suggest somet